The research house said both tailwinds are expected to be more muffled in 2018.

Moreover, the ringgit has appreciated sharply in recent weeks (+4.1% against the US$ and +1.8% in nominal effective exchange rate terms since 1 Nov).

“Further strengthening in the exchange rate would translate into lower converted export revenues.

“Due to the stronger-than-expected data outturn in recent months, we are tweaking our gross export growth forecast to 18.9% in 2017F (versus +15.3% previously and +1.2% in 2016), which would mark the highest annual growth rate since 2004.

“Against this high hurdle, we expect gross export growth to moderate in 2018F to 9.8%,” it said.